x AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 
April, 1909 
a 
PROBLEMS IN HOME FURNISHING 
(Continued from page tx) 
CUT-OUT BORDERS 
From a western home, situated some distance 
from a large city, comes an inquiry on wall 
decoration: ‘“‘I read in the home magazines, 
and also see a good many advertisements of 
‘cut-out borders.’ Can you give me an idea 
‘of these, to me, mystic words? Are these bor- 
ders a passing fad? Or are they in good taste 
and have they come to stay? Are they used 
all over the house, in every room, or should 
they be restricted to certain places?”’— 
JZG. Hi: 
The cut-out border is only one phase of the 
revived interest in all kinds of wallpaper bor- 
der decoration. As stated in this department 
in March, 1908, ‘““The purpose of the frieze, 
or border, is to bring a decorative note into a 
room while leaving the main body of the wall 
as a restful background.”” The floral border, 
eighteen or nine inches wide, has been in 
vogue for a long time, although for a few 
years its popularity waned. The increased 
A cut-out flower border 
attention that is now being paid to the artistic 
designing of wallpapers has revived the interest 
in the border and developed its sphere of use- 
fulness. ‘‘Cut-out borders” have the pattern 
cut away from the background. Sometimes 
only the lower edges are treated in this way 
(see illustration), sometimes the upper edges 
are also trimmed and the design is dropped 
a few inches below the ceiling. The placing 
of the picture molding must be considered 
when using a cut-out border, and also its fin- 
ish. It is an almost invariable rule to paint 
the picture molding the color of the ceiling, 
and place it at the cornice line, close to the 
ceiling. 
At first the borders were put on the market 
with the edges uncut, and home talent was 
then employed to prepare the paper for hang- 
ing. Now, the borders are furnished by the 
shops all ready to be applied. “There is, how- 
ever, some saving in cost when this work is 
done by the user. Some of the prettiest of the 
cut-out borders are loops of ribbon with knots 
of flowers. A light-toned paper, pearl, straw 
color or shrimp pink, with a narrow ribbon 
border in contrasting colors, is very attractive 
in a sleeping room. When there are large 
wall spaces the border may also be_ pasted 
parallel with the upper line that is near the 
ceiling a few inches above the baseboard, and 
also carried down the sides of the walls at the 
angles. When this is done it is necessary to 
select a design that will look well in the hori- 
zontal and perpendicular positions. 
In regard to the last question of this corre- 
spondent as to the proper places to use the cut- 
out borders, it is safe to keep them in bedrooms 
or the informal rooms of the home. 
BAY WINDOW CURTAINS 
“Will you kindly give me some special ad- 
vice for the parlor bay window curtains? I 
want to buy something good, but have not 
been satisfied with my present arrangement. 
There is one wide window, with a narrow 
window at each side. I have used two pairs 
of Irish point curtains, one for the middle 
window and a half pair for each side window. 
Is there any other way to treat these windows? 
Also, please tell me if short curtains to the sill 
will look any better than the long ones that 
hang to the floor. Another item for which I 
would be glad to have some information is 
the hanging of these curtains. Shall they 
be put up on my old wooden poles, and 
held back at the sides? JI feel I am behind 
the times when it comes to making any 
changes in my home furnishings.” —A. I. L., 
Ohio. : 
The bay window is always a problem when 
it comes to the curtains, as the variations in 
the widths of the windows is puzzling. A 
few patterns in lace curtains come in two 
widths, forty-eight and twenty-eight inches, 
and these are the right kind to use, a wide 
pair at the center window and a narrow pair 
at each side window. If these two widths are 
not obtainable, then an all-over net or lace 
may be made up into curtains, cutting the 
width to suit the narrow windows and edging 
the sides and bottoms with a narrow linen 
lace. 
The present method of hanging the lace 
curtains is different from the custom of a few 
years ago. A small brass rod, three-eighths of 
an inch, or, if for a long space, a half inch in 
diameter, is used now instead of the large 
wooden pole. The curtain is shirred on this 
rod with a heading showing above the rod an 
inch or an inch and a half. As the windows 
in a bay are so close together it is better to 
hang the material to the sill or a few inches 
below the sill. As to holding the curtains 
back or letting them hang straight, this is 
generally a personal preference that turns 
upon the amount of light’in the room. ‘The 
straight lines of a curtain hanging across the 
glass without looping back is often the best 
plan for a parlor. 
RESTFUL WALL HANGINGS 
“Some time ago, while we were planning 
our new home,” writes a Maryland reader 
D. M.'Y., “I came to your Home Furnish- 
ing Department for some ideas on finishing 
the woodwork. ‘The result has been so satis- 
factory, as we were fortunately able to carry 
out your suggestions, that now we are bringing 
another matter to your attention. We have 
been six months in our house and will soon 
feel like papering the walls. My husband is 
a professional man and I am a busy woman, 
and we both require restful surroundings. 
These seem to me to be attained chiefly 
through the coverings of the walls, as wher- 
(Continued on page xxiv) 
GARDEN WORK ABOUT THE HOME 
(Continued from page tx) 
on doing a piece of work that is good in itself, 
but one that will be the best for that situation. 
No matter how uninteresting the lot may be, 
it is not proper for any house; there must 
certainly be one particular house which is bet- 
ter adapted for that lot than any other. Ona 
lot of irregular shape, or one which is on a side 
hill or on rolling ground, the difficulties are 
much greater, but are fully offset by the satis- 
faction one has in an opportunity to depart a 
little from the commoner forms. The more 
severe the restrictions, the greater the delight 
which the artist takes in his work, and the 
greater the likelihood of doing something un- 
usually good. 
The charm of English domestic architecture 
is due in large part to the Englishman’s skill 
and ingenuity in fitting houses to odd shaped 
boundaries and irregular surfaces. “The most 
unpromising situation is attacked boldly; every 
resource of planning is utilized to produce a 
result that is reasonable and pleasing in the 
highest degree. 
These clever, careful Englishmen seem to 
leave nothing to chance! 
There are certain elementary principles in 
planning a house which it will do no harm to 
repeat. 
The dining-room should face east, or at 
least have east windows in order to have light 
and sunshine in the cool of the early morning. 
The living-room should face south for 
warmth and protection in winter, and for the 
sake of the summer winds, which are usually 
from the south, and because the south is the 
pleasantest side of the house. 
Northeast rooms are hottest in summer and 
southwest rooms coolest. 
The front door should be on the side of the 
house opposite the garden. 
The kitchen should be on the northeast or 
northwest corner, which is to leeward of the 
house in summer. 
Next to a southern exposure for the house, 
that to the southeast is the best because it is 
the coolest side of the house in the afternoon 
when one is most likely to sit on the terrace 
or piazza. 
No one cares to sit on a western piazza on 
a summer afternoon. It is hot and trying to 
the eyes, and moreover the landscape is always 
more beautiful when looking away from the 
sun. 
It is a good plan to have the stable or 
garage rather near the kitchen wing of the 
house, on a small lot; then a large court will 
serve both instead of having a separate stable 
court and service court. This is a great 
economy of space and labor. 
In the present instance I think the house 
should face the avenue, and be quite near it 
so that there is no room wasted next to the 
street and on the north side of the house. 
A high wall in front would give sufficient 
privacy for that side of the louse, and it might 
seem less eccentric to conventional neighbors 
to have the wall than to front the house on the 
side street, and have the kitchen toward the 
avenue. 
The general arrangement of rooms in the 
house and of the grounds is shown on lot 
number two in Fig. 1. 
The garden side of the house is unbroken 
by entrance drives or paths, and the whole 
space can be used to the best advantage. It 
will be secluded and sunny, and to have the 
bulk of the place on one side of the house will ° 
make the place seem twice as large as it would 
seem if the house were in the middle of the 
lot. 
The arrangement of the other three corner 
lots is shown roughly in the diagram. Num- 
(Continued on page xit) 
